PC will have to up its game against No. 3 Kentucky

Saturday

Nov 30, 2013 at 7:35 PM

NEW YORK — The call came out of the blue from the heart of Big Blue Nation.Brian Blaney, the assistant coach at Providence College in charge of scheduling, was asked if the Friars had an interest in playing...

Kevin McNamara Journal Sports Writer kevinmcnamara33

NEW YORK — The call came out of the blue from the heart of Big Blue Nation.

Brian Blaney, the assistant coach at Providence College in charge of scheduling, was asked if the Friars had an interest in playing a two-game series against Kentucky. One game would be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with the Wildcats controlling the tickets. A second would come at Rupp Arena in Lexington. John Calipari and his ’Cats wouldn’t consider a game at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

“We were on a bus going somewhere, and I asked Ed (Cooley) and (associate head coach) Andre (LaFleur) ‘Do you guys want to play Kentucky?’ They both said yes right away,” Blaney recalled.

The first of PC’s two games against Kentucky comes on Sunday night at the two-year-old Barclays Center. The Friars sold their 1,000 tickets quite a while ago. The rest of the 18,000 will be painted Kentucky Blue. Barclays and Kentucky hosted a similar one-shot game with Maryland last November. That game sold 17,700 tickets.

Why would Providence want to face highly rated (No. 3 last week) Kentucky in each of the next two seasons with no chance at a return game? Many reasons, according to Blaney and Cooley. The most important is the huge bump in strength of schedule points, something the Friars are concerned about as they angle to play in the NCAA Tournament. The exposure, national TV time and simple chance at pulling a major upset all add up to a golden opportunity.

“It wasn’t a discussion at all because of the profile of Kentucky. The RPI bump is huge, our fans love it and it really helps in recruiting. It’s three good hits in one,” Blaney said.

Since he arrived at PC in the spring of 2011, Cooley said he’s taken every opportunity to persuade his well-heeled friends in coaching to come to Rhode Island to play a home-and-home series. Most respond with a laugh.

“I asked Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski of Duke), but all of the ACC is now coming to New England to play Boston College, so they won’t play us,” Cooley said. “We tried Michigan State, we tried Kansas, we tried Texas, Florida, Arizona. Nobody wants to come to The Dunk. We’re trying to change the scheduling philosophy of the past and try to play a couple of really competitive, competitive non-conference games, and the next best thing was to go to a neutral site and then go on the road. I felt with the national exposure and television and the way we’re recruiting we should do this.”

Blaney thinks about scheduling on a daily basis with an eye toward getting the Friars back into the NCAAs. In previous seasons, the powerful Big East solved most of PC’s scheduling challenges. After playing Rhode Island, Boston College and in a holiday tournament before conference play began, the Friars’ Big East schedule was stocked with enough national powers to give the team a strong RPI and plenty of chances to grab enough marquee wins to impress the NCAA selection committee.

But the conference realignment has shifted a greater focus to the nonleague schedules of Big East teams. Last season, Providence played 11 games against top-50 RPI teams, all conference games. Of the 11, nine came against schools that have left the conference (Louisville, Syracuse twice, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Connecticut twice, Cincinnati twice). Only Marquette and Georgetown remain.

The good news is that the addition of Butler, Creighton and Xavier to the Big East will give PC more chances at potential top-50 games. Blaney says he can see the Friars playing eight to 10 top-50 RPI games in conference this season. Many of the schools in the conference have upgraded their nonleague schedules, and at this early stage of the season the Big East has the top strength-of-schedule rating in the country.

“We’re selling to our fans and to our recruits that we’re willing to play anyone,” said Cooley. “If you get close enough to the (NCAA) field of 65, a game against Kentucky on a neutral court helps show that you tried to schedule tough opponents. This will help us.”

The Friars face a load of challenges in a game like this one. First off, Cooley may not have point guard Kris Dunn due to a nagging shoulder injury. Dunn’s status won’t be determined until game time, but he badly wants to play.

While Dunn is the only McDonald’s All-American on PC’s roster, Kentucky’s is filled with the highest-rated recruits available. Sophomore returnees Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress were both top-50 recruits in 2012. Cauley-Stein will start alongside four freshmen, all of whom were rated among the top-10 recruits in the Class of 2013. The Wildcats are so talented that all five starters plus bench players Poythress and 7-foot freshman Dakari Johnson could be first-round picks in the next NBA Draft.

Calipari is poo-pooing his talent, for the moment anyway. “If we’re the third-best team in the country, there are a lot of bad teams out there,” he said after a recent comeback win over Cleveland State.

But the coach quickly followed by saying, “We have more upside than any team in the country.”

Cooley admits playing the Wildcats is a big challenge, but it’s one with little downside for the Friars.

“The average fan thinks you’re going to lose twice, but with a veteran group I think you’re going to give yourself a chance,” he said. “We go in expecting to win and play as hard as you can.”